


All Acts of Love

by greenbirds



Category: Mists of Avalon - Bradley
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:05:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbirds/pseuds/greenbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after Beltane eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Acts of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shimi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shimi/gifts).



I.  Lancelet

    The Beltane fires have long since burnt to naught more than tattered ribbons of smoke.  When he wakes, it is the in-between time, the night past, the light of dawn not yet glimmering on the horizon.  The stone walls around him breathe stillness.  
    For a few moments, there is only a pleasant lassitude, the soft heaviness of the covers, and the warm weight of his beloved pressed against his side.  When he strokes her arm, she sighs gently and nestles closer.  The room is weighted with darkness, but Lancelet conjures the sight of her in his mind – Gwenhwyfar, his white queen, the fine pale silk of her hair tumbling free over the  rosy swell of her breasts, her lips parted, her eyes wide with surprise and joy.  Five-and-twenty, perhaps, but no old woman for all that.   
    Oh, she drew him the way a lodestone draws iron, has always drawn him, and he can no more stay away than the tides can deny the pull of the moon, or the winter snows can deny the spring thaw.  Lancelet had dreamed of that moment in a hundred stolen kisses, had dreamed of taking her, of possessing her, of holding her to him like a priceless treasure.  Yet, when Gwenhwyfar had drawn aside her robe and come into his waiting arms, he had been overcome with the sudden urge to prostrate himself at her feet, to offer her praise and worship, to humble himself before her.  He had meant for her to be his, but instead it was himself he had given, body and soul, to his white queen.  That the Goddess had worn the body of a pious Christian woman when she came at last to Lancelet of the Lake had seemed but a small matter.   
    It is early yet, and the warmth of the bed and the solidity of the woman beside him, drowsing contentedly in his embrace, are seductive.  Though the air is thick with the damp chill of early morning, he forces himself to stir, to slip noiselessly from between the covers.  Lancelet imagines himself small and dark, a woodland sparrow, an interloper.  Last night was Beltane, a time outside of time, but today the sun will rise on an ordinary day.  Stooping, shivering, he begins to gather his garments by touch.  He knows he must be gone before the first tentative rays of dawn can illumine the merest hint of a scandal.  They are his King and Queen, his Golden Ones, and Lancelet would die to see them safe.   
    Arthur’s voice catches him in the midst of this sacrifice, blurred with sleep, but warm with love (Could it be love?  Lancelet’s heart leaps).  “You’ll catch your death, Lance.  Come back to bed.”

II.  Arthur

    Arthur does not know, now, what he had been expecting.  That sin might be a necessary price to preserve the peace, perhaps, or perhaps that Lancelet might be Bilhah to his Leah, to grant him God’s blessing at last.  _But you are not my handmaid, Lance_, he thinks with a surge of warmth,  _You are_ – Arthur stops.  He finds that he does not want to weigh and measure what has befallen them, finds he does not want to hem it round about in a wall of words.   
    In the cold, rational light of the days before, the High King had imagined standing detached, separate, while Lancelet gave the High Queen the one thing that Arthur had never been able to provide.  Arthur had prayed, though he had never been sure to whom -- God could never forgive this, and the Goddess would not have liked that he thought of it as wrong – that Gwenhwyfar would not be terrified, that he himself would not be consumed with jealousy, that they would all somehow find the courage to do what was needed to give their kingdom a child and, with that child, the promise of another generation of peace.  
    But in the end, it had been no necessary evil, no feat of strength.  Warm with wine, Arthur had given the woman he loved into the arms of the man he held above all others, and it had seemed only natural at the time to let himself sink as well into the ebb and flow of touching and kissing, of holding and being held.  In the embrace of Beltane eve, there was only pleasure to be given and pleasure to be taken, and the two people he cherished most in all the world.  
    They had breathed together, and when suddenly Arthur had realized that it was Lancelet’s arms around him, Lancelet’s wiry strength bearing him up, it had seemed more like benediction than sin.  _Lay down your burdens, my old friend,_ the smaller man’s body had seemed to whisper, limned with the faint glow of the firelight.  _Give them to me, and let me carry them for just a little while_.  
    With a cry of gratitude and tears wet on his cheeks, Arthur, son of Uther, warrior king and protector of a nation, had learned what it was to be loved.

III.  Gwenyhwyfar

    She opens her eyes to blackness, and to memory.  A memory of lips and hands, of gentleness and warmth and pleasure.  Of Arthur whispering his love for her, of Lancelet, head thrown back, crying her name.  She remembers the beloved coarseness of Arthur’s chest, the fascinating smoothness of Lancelet’s dark skin beneath her questing fingers.  She remembers laughing, remembers the laughter of her husband, of her lover.  She knows she should be thinking of penance, knows that the nuns would call this blackest sin, but she wonders, how can there be sin in the face of such joy?  
    Gwenhwyfar should be thinking of penance, but for an instant she cannot remember the right words.   
    _Laudate Dominum omnes gentes_, the High Queen’s heart sings instead.  _O praise the Lord all ye nations_.  There will be time enough later for regret.  
    Arthur draws her close, draws her into the circle of his arms, and she can feel his heart beating beneath her cheek.  Her husband’s voice rumbles pleasantly in his chest as he calls Lancelet back to bed.  Gwenhwyfar has almost roused herself to protest (this is wrong, my lord, what we have done is wrong) when she feels the other man settle next to her on the mattress and finds herself caught in between her husband and her lover, nestled within their strength.   
    Lancelet and Arthur surround her effortlessly, to her left and to her right, solid and impregnable as the stone walls of any fortress.  For the first time since she can remember, Gwenhwyfar, High Queen of Britain, is not afraid.  
    _Laudate eum omnes populi_.

  
L_et my worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals._  --The Charge of the Goddess, traditional by Doreen Valiente, as adapted by Starhawk.

**Author's Note:**

> When my Yuletide assignment first showed up in my inbox, I confess to being a little intimidated by the prospect of taking on a MoA fic. But it turned out to be an amazing opportunity to really get to know these three characters, and even to finally begin to understand (and even maybe like) Gwenhwyfar, who previously had been one of my least favorite characters in the book. (This, I will note, is no longer the case). Thank you for the opportunity! I had a wonderful time writing this fic.


End file.
